The Demon's Scion

Chapter 2 ⁓ No Reruns

Then Kane thinks, perhaps it's not. He's never hung around Kiernan willingly for extended periods. Their only interaction was when the vampire would chauffeur Reid around, and they never spoke, glaring mostly.

Kiernan says, "She's offering him tea. No. Wait, yes. She's just asked him if he'd like tea or a knock on the jaw. Her words. Ah, of course, he's refused both. The tea especially."

The deadpan tone in which the vampire utters the absurdity has Kane snorting back an almost laugh.

Ear still pressed to the dead wood of the bathroom's door, Kiernan says, "He's agitated and asking about his son. He'll be demanding soon."

Kiernan presses his forehead against the wood of the door. He begins muttering to himself, sharp and breathy, and Kane is reminded that he's standing in his blood-soaked bathroom with a century-old creature of the night that's presumably half-mad like all the others.

Suddenly, Kiernan lifts his head sharply. "I'll go, explain, and make sure everything remains civil." He's already grabbing for the knob when Kane perks up at the words, his heart hastening with spiking outrage.

Kane sputters, "You said he'd try and kill me."

Reid sits forward, hunting Kane's voice, and Kane flinches back, slipping on the wet tile, but his grip on the tub keeps him from falling on his ass. He thinks this might be a problem. He can't be trying for a weapon every time Reid glances his way.

Kiernan looks over his shoulder, frowning. "He has paltry human strength and will for many years. I can stay and pull him off you, or I can leave you to your fate, Rainer. I think you can handle one newly-turned vampire, can't you?"

There's the Kiernan that Kane knows. At Kane's hateful glare, the vampire flashes his fangs with a beaming smile.

Kane holds back his curses because, not long ago, he'd contemplated a similar fate for the bastard. Though there's a determined spark in Kiernan's dark gaze, one that Kane has seen many times in battles fought, by a partner on the other side of bloodshed.

Gabriel is listening, goes unsaid, his presence in the room like smog.

Kane would bet that Gabriel wants him out of the picture, and Kiernan helping would be a nail in his coffin of betrayal.

Still, fuck him.

"Leave," Kane growls, furious, only to lose his luster when a cold hand grasps his forearm, and he once again flinches like a coward. His heart beats rapidly, yearning for the tight line of Reid's bloody lips to part and begin spewing achingly familiar bullshit.

The door clicks closed, and when Kane looks up, Kiernan is gone.

Kane rises, and Reid's clutch follows until it can't, slipping away. The bloody fingers hitting the edge of the tub with a thud must be painful. Reid doesn't react beyond hunting Kane's footsteps with a turn of his head. Kane flips the lock on the door.

Slowly, tiny hinges creaking, Kane opens the lower cupboard of the vanity. He reaches under the sink and past the piping. He implores his training to calm his heartbeat into a heavy thud that no longer rings his ears and leaves him shaking.

"Remember when you used to run away and come tapping on my window?" Kane pointedly doesn't look at the bathtub and focuses on unfastening the pistol from the strapping keeping it in place. He holds the weight in his palm. "I'd call you a pest."

Kane clicks the safety of the gun. Milton's voice is in his mind, telling him to follow his head, not his heart, but fuck, his heart is so loud, deafening, beating faster and faster at the sight of Reid slumped in the tub, blindfold blinding him. The idiot's looking, just without eyes. The shiver up Kane's spine tells him so.